Link towns to towns with avenues of oak, Enclose whole downs in walls, 'tis all a joke! nexorable death shall level all,

And trees, and stones, and farm, and farmer fall
Gold, silver, ivory, vases sculptured high,
Paint, marble, gems, and robes of Persian dvc,
There are who have not-and, thank Heaven! there are
Who if they have not, think not worth their care.
Talk what you will of taste, my friend, you'll find
Two of a face, as soon as of a mind.
Why of two brothers, rich and restless one
Ploughs, burns, manures, and toils from sun to sun.
The other slights, for women, sports, and wines,
All Townshend's turnips, and all Grosvenor's mines:
Why one like Bu** with pay and scorn content,
Bows and votes on in court and parliament;
One, driven by strong benevolence of soul,
Shall fly like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole;
Is known alone to that Directing Power,
Who forms the genius in the natal hour;
That God of nature, who within us still,
Inclines our action, not constrains our will;
Various of temper, as of face or frame,
Each individual: His great end the same.
Yes, sir, how small soever be my heap,

A part I will enjoy, as well as keep.
My heir may sigh, and think it want of grace,
A man so poor would live without a place :
But sure no statute in his favour says,
How free or frugal I shall pass my days:
I who at some times spend, at others spare,
Divided between carelessness and care.
'Tis one thing madly to disperse my store;
Another, not to heed to treasure more:
Glad, like a boy, to snatch the first good day
And pleased, if sordid want be far away.

What is 't to me (a passenger God wot)
Whether my vessel be first-rate or not?
VOL. II.

5

The ship itself may make a better figure;
But I that sail am neither less nor bigger.
I neither strut with every favouring breath,
Nor strive with all the tempest in my teeth.
In power, wit, figure, virtue, fortune, placed
Behind the foremost, and before the last.

'But why all this of avarice? I have none'
I wish you joy, sir, of a tyrant gone!
But does no other lord it at this hour,
As wild and mad? the avarice of power?
Does neither rage inflame, nor fear appal?
Not the black fear of death that saddens all?
With terrors round, can reason hold her throne,
Despise the known, nor tremble at the unknown?
Survey both worlds, intrepid and entire,
In spite of witches, devils, dreams and fire?
Pleased to look forward, pleased to look behind,
And count each birth-day with a grateful mind?
Has life no sourness, drawn so near its end?
Canst thou endure a foe, forgive a friend?
Has age but melted the rough parts away,
As winter-fruits grow mild ere they decay?
Or will you think, my friend, your business done,
When, of a hundred thorns, you pull out one?

Learn to live well, or fairly make your will; You've play'd, and loved, and ate, and drank your fil Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age

Comes tittering on, and shoves you from the stage Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease, Whom folly pleases, and whose follies please

(59)

THE

SATIRES OF DR. JOHN DONNE,
DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S,
VERSIFIED.

Quid vetat et nosmet Lucili scripta legentes
Quætere num illius, num rerum dura negarit
Versiculos natura magis factos, et euntes
Mollius?

SATIRE II.

YES; thank my stars! as early as I knew This town, I had the sense to hate it too: Yet here, as e'en in hell, there must be still One giant-vice, so excellently ill,

That all beside one pities, not abhors:

As who knows Sappho, smiles at other whores.
I grant that poetry's a crying sin;

It brought (no doubt) the excise and army in:

Catch'd like the plague, or love, the Lord knows how But that the cure is starving, all allow.

Yet like the papist's, is the poet's state,

Poor and disarm'd, and hardly worth your hate?
Here a lean bard, whose wit could never give
Himself a dinner, makes an actor live:

SATIRE II.

SIR; though (I thank God for it) I do hate Perfectly all this town: yet there's one state

In all ill things, so excellently best,

That hate tow'rds them, breeds pity tow'rds the rest. Though poetry, indeed, be such a sin,

As I think, that brings dearth and Spaniards in:
Though like the pestilence and old-fashion'd love,
Ridlingly it catch men, and doth remove

Never, till it be starved out; yet their state
Is poor, disarm'd, like papists, not worth hate.

One (like a wretch, which at the bar judged as dead,
Yet prompts him which stands next, and cannot read
And saves his life) gives idiot actors means
(Starving himself) to live by's labour'd scenes

The thief condemn'd, in law already dead,
So prompts, and saves a rogue who cannot read.
Thus as the pipes of some carved organ move,
The gilded puppets dance and mount above.
Heaved by the breath the inspiring bellows blow:
The inspiring bellows lie and pant below

One sings the fair: but songs no longer move⚫
No rat is rhymed to death, nor maid to love:
In love's, in nature's spite, the siege they hold,
And scorn the flesh, the devil, and all but gold.

These write to lords, some mean reward to get,
As needy beggars sing at doors for meat.
Those write because all write, and so have still
Excuse for writing, and for writing ill.
Wretched indeed! but far more wretched yet
Is he who makes his meal on others' wit:
'Tis changed, no doubt, from what it was before;
His rank digestion makes it wit no more:

Sense, pass'd through him, no longer is the same; For food digested takes another name.

As in some organs puppets dance above,

And as bellows pant below, which then do move, One would move love by rhymes; but witchcraft'

charms

Bring not now their old fears, nor their old harms: Rams and slings now are silly battery,

Pistolets are the best artillery.

And they who write to lords, rewards to get,
Are they not like singers at doors for meat?
And they who write, because all write, have still
That 'scuse for writing, and for writing ill.

But he is worst, who beggarly doth chaw
Other wits' fruits, and in his ravenous maw
Rankly digested, doth those things out-spue,
As his own things; and they're his own, 'tis

true;

For if one eat my meat, though it be known
The meat was mine, the excrement's his own.

I pass o'er all those confessors and martyrs, Who live like S-tt-n, or who die like Chartres, Out-cant old Esdras, or out-drink his heir; Out-usure Jews, or Irishmen out-swear; Wicked as pages, who in early years

Act sins which Prisca's confessor scarce hears.
E'en those I pardon, for whose sinful sake
Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make;
Of whose strange crimes no canonist can tell
In what commandment's large contents they dwell.
One, one man only breeds my just offence;
Whom crimes gave wealth, and wealth gave impu
dence:

Time, that at last matures a clap to pox,

Whose gentle progress makes a calf an ox,
And brings all natural events to pass,
Hath made him an attorney of an ass.
No young divine, new-beneficed, can be
More pert, more proud, more positive than he.
What further could I wish the fop to do,
But turn a wit, and scribble verses too?
Pierce the soft labyrinth of a lady's ear

With rhymes of this per cent, and that per year?

*

But these do me no harm, nor they which use, * to out-usure Jews, To out-drink the sea, t' outswear the letanie, Who with sins all kinds as familiar be As confessors, and for whose sinful sake Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make; Whose strange sins canonists could hardly tell In which commandment's large receit they dwell But these punish themselves. The insolence Of Coscus, only, breeds my just offence, Who time (which rots all, and makes botches pox, And plodding on, must make a calf an ox) Hath made a lawyer; which (alas) of late; But scarce a poet: jollier of this state, Than are new beneficed ministers, he throws Like nets or lime-twigs whereso'er he goes